I, too, have developed my own methods for inventorying classical music files. After evaluating dozens of data base systems, I decided to do my own - because of the limitations of the commerically available systems.
I have tagged my entire collection of classical LP's and CD's and can find any piece in a variety of different ways. Briefly, here are some of the things I have done. I use Media Monkey to build my basic data base. Media Monkey is very capable of handling large data bases and it has a good tagging system. It also has excellent tools for synchronizing tags with the data base keys. There are many third party scripts available for customizing Media Monkey to make it better handle classical music. For example, I use third party scripts to handle operas that span many disks; I use another script to find album covers on Google (much better than Amazon)- and another script to display most of the information I track about a piece while it is playing. Media Monkey also has a field for tracking album-level comments. Most music data base systems only allow tracking of song-level comments, so this is a major advantage. Some of the information I record in album-level comments inludes opera cast; historical notes about the recording; and tidbits I pick up from the jacket liner. It is very important to develop rules for handling difficult encoding situations. For example, I generally interpet the "artist" to be the composer. But for compilation disks by a single performer, I make the artist the performer. The key question to ask is what would I normally search for if I was looking for this piece of music. Use the answer to this question in deciding whom to make the artist. Use Media Monkey to build the data base. Media Monkey also has a decent player, but they don't have the ability to play in remote rooms via a network connection. This is where SlimDevices comes in. I build the data base in Media Monkey and then scan it into SlimServer - from where I can broadcast my classical collection to most any room in the house via a wired/wireless network. Although it took a lot of work, I am very pleased with my classical music data base and my ability to quickly find any piece of music. It can be done. -- cherryplinth ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cherryplinth's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5567 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23843 _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/ripping
